How to Grow, Nurture and Sell to Your Audience Through Content
One single post won’t sell out your business. I don’t care what the viral Instagram reels say. We are wonderfully complex human beings with hopes, dreams, fears and insecurities. We need more than a 600 character post to make the decision to invest our time, effort and money. If you want your content marketing to work for you, keep that in mind by following the content selling cycle.
First, What You Need to Know About Content
I want to rewind a second and clarify what I mean by content marketing. Generally, anything you post online to engage an audience of buyers for your business. The main content marketing channels are social media (Instagram and LinkedIn are my favs), email marketing and blogs. Each has its unique value to you, especially when you use them all and sync them up.
Social media
Social media content is great for getting in front of new people. Our feeds are (scarily intentionally) made up of content from people we follow and content the algorithm overlords think we will like. So it’s a great way to get new eyes on your business. The only thing is that social media algorithms can be a bit unpredictable. Don’t worry that’s why we have…
Email marketing
Email marketing ticks a lot of boxes. Your email newsletter and any automations you set up go (pretty) directly into subscribers’ inboxes. It’s a communication channel almost everyone has and checks regularly. It is yet to go out of style. You own the contact information and because people have to sign up to receive emails from you, you know your email list actually cares about your business. It’s perfect for warming up your most-likely-to-buy leads. That’s even easier when you regularly write…
Blogs
Blogs are massive authority-builders. You have the breathing space to go into more depth and breadth about your area of expertise and really impress your audience. Blogs are a reason for people to visit your website (just having a website is a reliability check) and they might poke around while they’re there, looking at other blogs and even checking out your services. With the power of SEO, you can attract new leads.
The Golden Triad
Together social, email and blogs are the golden triad of content marketing because they get new eyes on your business, keep people in your world and get them eager to work with you. They all work together wonderfully because the more interactions a lead has with you, the more likely they are to become a client. So direct social media leads to join your email list and check out your blogs. Promote your blogs in your email newsletter (it’s a way to give even more value). Link to other blogs in each blog and include promotions for your email newsletter and lead magnet.
Someone could find you on social media, join your email list and then become a client when they read a case study blog. Or you might get a client who first came across you through a blog and got to know you on your email list until they were ready to buy. The point is that they work together to create more opportunities to win clients. Especially, you write according to the content selling cycle.
The Content Selling Cycle
You need to write three types of content consistently to generate clients from content marketing. I call it the content selling cycle because it takes leads from newbie to client. And you need to cycle through it because each client will probably need to see each type of content more than once before they’re ready to work with you.
Grow
The first step in someone becoming a client is them realising your business exists in the first place. You need to grow your audience to keep getting new clients. That’s what this type of content does. It speaks to people before they know about your business.
Write about what your clients are thinking about, interested in, worrying about and motivated to achieve before they know you exist and before they realise you could help them. For example, my grow content is directed at people who are still writing their own content and don’t realise the value of handing it over to a copywriter.
Nurture
Your audience won’t buy from you as soon as they find you. You haven’t had a chance to tell them how amazing you are yet! They need time and content that aligns their wonderful humanness (hopes, dreams, fears and insecurities) with what you do. Get your audience to warm up to who you are and what you do.
Write about the questions people will have before they are ready to buy from you. Why is it a problem they need to fix now? How does it relate to what they really want and are motivated to achieve? Why is your solution right for them? Why are you the person to help them?
Sell
People can’t buy what they don’t know exists and don’t see the value of. So you need to sell what you do regularly. This kind of content gives them time to get their head around what you offer and what working with you would be like. Provide all the information they need to make an informed buying decision and feel really freaking excited about working with you. There’s a practical and emotional side to selling.
Write about all the services you offer, how they work, the problems they solve, the benefits they get from doing it your way, and the outcomes and new life they can expect from working with you. Use specific examples from your work with clients and let your emotions shine through to create a genuine connection at this critical moment.
Grab 30 free content ideas categorised into grow, nurture and sell. It will help you get into the routine of it and spark new inspiration for what to write about in your content. I mean free content ideas, why the hell not?
The right content in the right format
So how does the golden triad fit into the selling cycle? They all fit into the selling cycle in one way or another apart from email marketing which only really works for nurture and sell. You can’t grow your audience through email marketing because people need to sign up to receive emails from you and therefore need to already know you exist. You can ask subscribers to forward your emails to people they think will benefit from it but that’s a referral and something you can’t control.
On each platform, you want to cycle through each type of content.
On social media, this looks like writing posts that immediately grab attention and get people wanting to know more about you. Then prove your worth by giving tips, surprising them with new takes and directing them to your email list and blog for even more resources. Finally, create content explicitly about what you do.
With emails, alternate between email newsletters that add a load of value like an inspiring client story, a proven strategy or a new blog alert and email newsletters that sell what you do.
Write blogs around keywords and FAQs to attract new leads. Also, include blogs about what you’re being asked all the time or what you think people need to know about your area of expertise to nurture them. Turn client success stories into blogs that sell what you do. Always include a reference to your email list so website visitors don’t disappear into thin air.
You can’t sell more if your audience isn’t growing or ready to buy from you. On the other hand, you can’t expect to win new clients if you’re only posting content that grows and nurtures your audience. There may be times when you focus on one of the stages of the selling cycle more than others because business priorities change. For example, if you’re preparing for a launch, you want to grow your audience first and focus on selling nearer the launch date. Just make sure you’re covering it all in some capacity on whatever combination of platforms you are visible on.
Time to get writing! No excuses. I’ve put together 30 content prompts that cover the whole selling cycle that you can download for free. Get the prompts and get going.